The first section surveys examples of what we see as the prevailing approach to understanding ‘digital literacy’ – which we identify with what we call an ‘It’ perspective on digital literacy concluding that such accounts are informational, ‘truthcentric’ and ‘monolithic’ in character
The second section critiques the ‘It’ perspective on digital literacy, drawing especially on arguments derived from a sociocultural perspective on literacy.
We argue for the importance of conceptualizing digital literacies as plural rather than singular, and observe that truthcentric and informational forms of digital literacies in no way exhaust the contemporary constellation of influential and widely-subscribed practices we identify as digital literacies
the third section sketches some typical digital literacies we consider significant under current and foreseeable conditions (weblogging, fanfiction, memeing)
In the final section we consider some implications of this diversity of digital literacies for policy, pedagogy and research dimensions of education--
The ‘It’ perspective on digital literacy
First, currently prevailing views of digital literacy share in common the ideas that there is a ‘thing’ we can call digital literacy; ‘it’ is singular; its essence can be rendered as a standardised measurable competency – or unified set of more specific competencies and skills; and it comprises a ‘truthcentric’ ideal of information proficiency
Second, in the established world of conventional print-based literacy various agents and organisations take it upon themselves to define what literacy is, to teach it, measure it, assess it, and remediate it – in a word, to universalise and standardize it.
Some typical conceptual definitions of ‘digital literacy’
‘Literacy’ has extended its semantic reach from meaning ‘the ability to read and write’ to now meaning ‘the ability to understand information however presented’
Richard Lanham (1995: 198) Scientific American, comment by Lisa Stornes
Digital literacy as ‘the ability to understand and use information in multiple formats from a wide variety of sources when it is presented via computers’ and, particularly, through the medium of the Internet
Paul Gilster (in Pool 1997) comment by Lisa Stornes
He identifies four key competencies of digital literacy, and describes each at length in his book. These are ‘knowledge assembly’ (Gilster 1997: Ch 7), evaluating information content, searching the internet, and navigating hypertext (ibid: Ch 1-6)
Gilster claims that we need to teach and learn ‘how to use the Web properly and how to be critical. ‘how to assimilate the information, evaluate it, and then reintegrate it’ (in Pool 1997)
“Digital kompetanse: fra basisferdighet til digital dannelse” a conception of digital literacy as a broad competency that links traditional basic skills – including encoding and decoding conventional print texts – with the capacity to use ICT critically and creatively
According to Yngve Wallin (nd), Norway’s official concept of digital literacy should be seen as ‘an upgrade of the concept of literacy in order to make it useable today’, and as centred on … the social, communicative and reflective process of learning’; not as ‘just a set of technical and critical skills like those being defined in the ECDL [European Computer Driving Licence]’ (ibid., np.)
Some typical ‘standardised operationalisations’ of digital literacy
Attempts to operationalise what is involved in being ‘digitally literate’ in terms of certain tasks, performances, demonstrations of skills, etc., and then to render these as a standard set for general adoption.
Nearer the ‘keystroke’ end of the range we find the approach favoured by the Global Digital Literacy Council (GDLC).
Three main content areas: Computing Fundamentals, Key Applications, and Living Online
The U.S. of the Educational Testing Service (ets.org), which has worked with a consortium of U.S. universities to produce ‘a comprehensive test of ICT proficiency specifically designed for the higher education environment. ICT literacy = ‘the ability to use digital technology, communication tools and/or networks appropriately to solve information problems in order to function in an information society’ The ETS operationalisation involves real time tasks that are ‘scenario-based’ The seven competencies are identified as ‘Define’, ‘Access’, ‘Manage’, ‘Integrate’, ‘Evaluate’, ‘Create’ and ‘Communicate’.
Evaluate consists of ‘The ability to determine the degree to which digital information satisfies the needs of the task in ICT environments. This includes the ability to judge the quality, relevance, authority, point of view/bias, currency, coverage, or accuracy of digital information’
Communicate consists of ‘The ability to communicate information properly in its context of use for ICT environments’ and includes ‘the ability to gear electronic information for a particular audience and to communicate knowledge in the appropriate venue.
Key features of these conceptual definitions and operationalisations of digital literacy
Perhaps the feature that is most immediately striking about these accounts is the extent to which they confine ‘digitality’ to roles concerned with information
Digital literacy is about interacting with information, and interacting with information is about assessing its ‘truth’ (or validity), ‘credibility’, ‘reliability’ and so on
Looking at these conceptual definitions more broadly, we see that they envisage digital literacy as an ‘it’ – some kind of a ‘thing’: a capacity or ability, a skill (or set of skills), or ‘master competency’ (composed of more specific competencies and dispositions). It is something you ‘have’, or not, and anyone who does not have it ‘needs’ to get it.
(Sociocultural) critique of digital literacy from an ‘It’ perspective
The heart of our critique involves advancing a sociocultural approach to understanding (digital) literacy against what we have called the ‘It’ perspective.
First, it distorts social practice and human intent if digital literacy is defined purely or predominantly in terms of interacting with information (cf., Schrage 2001)
Second, increasingly, information becomes grist for participation in practices of affinity (Gee 2004). It is taken up at the level of information, and engaged with as information, but often without any concern whatsoever for truth or the risk of manipulation, or anything similar.
Third, a major concern we have with the ‘It’ perspective is, paradoxically, related to what is presumed by its advocates to be its strength: namely, that once you identify what ‘it’ is you can teach (for) ‘it’. Like conventional literacy, digital literacy is being ‘schooled’ to conform to the logic of manipulative institutions (compulsory consumption of services), and to be made into something manageable at the level of totalizing systems.
Our main line of critique, however, argues for the benefits of adopting a sociocultural approach to ‘digital literacy’ rather than an ‘It’ perspective. This amounts to rejecting an ‘autonomous’ model (cf. Street 1984; Lankshear 1987: Ch 2) of digital literacy.
‘Digital literacy’ consists in so many lists of what the abstracted skills and techniques are that a proficient person can ‘do’. Once they ‘have’ them they can then put them to useful purposes in work, at home, at school, etc., and function ‘competently’. Courses then set about ‘teaching’ learners these tools and techniques, and certify them when they are finished. (The process is almost precisely the opposite from what, for example, young people do when they set about learning how to play an online game and to become part of an online gaming community.)
Reading and writing is always ‘reading and writing with meaning’ and this meaning is not primarily, or even substantially, a function of some ‘skill’ or ‘technique’ that might be called ‘comprehension’. It is predominantly a function of social practice, social context, and of Discourse (Gee 1996) For example, fundamentalist Christians and Liberation theologists can decode the same biblical text and arrive at polarised meanings. They decode exactly the same, but they mean exactly the opposite. This is not because they have different comprehension skills, but because they are reading and writing out of different forms of life, or different Discourses.
The way sociocultural theorists express this is by saying that there is not just reading and writing; there is not just literacy, there are very many literacies. This has crucial implications for ‘digital literacy’. It means that we should think of ‘digital literacy’ not as something unitary, and certainly not as some finite ‘competency’ or ‘skill’. Hence, there will be myriad digital literacies. There will be multiple social practices and conceptions of searching, of navigating links, of evaluating credibility of sources, of ‘posting’, and so on. These will vary according to how people ‘identify’ themselves: according to the values they have, the social groups they relate to, the affinities they invest in and attach themselves to, the purposes they see themselves pursuing, the kinds of images they seek to project, and so on. Other people may value these literacies differently and be in positions of power to reward or sanction them differentially (e.g., the teacher who rejects an essay written using SMS texting protocols). But they are nonetheless discernible literacies and their public and political valuation is a different matter from their ontological status as extant phenomena.
Digital literacies in everyday life
Weblogs/blogging
Fanfiction
Meme-ing
Some policy, pedagogy and research considerations Policy
Digital literacy needs to be problematised rather than taken as understood.
Policy makers should resist the temptation to make curriculum the default setting for providing access to digital literacy
The need to recognize a much wider range of digital literacies than simply those that are tied to information is also important.
Pedagogy
It is important to consider the extent to which the ‘digits’ – the operational aspects – are, in fact, the least of what is involved in most digital literacies.
In his celebrated study of What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy (2003), James Gee explores game playing as sociocultural practice. Consequently, if we want to know what drives people to learn and to keep learning, and how they achieve and ‘grow’ this learning, then games is an obvious place to look.
Research
It is important that researchers working from a predominantly sociocultural perspective develop and maintain a close interest in the ways that ‘skills’ and ‘techniques’ are acquired and become practiced and fluent within the context of participating in social practices of digital literacy, along with a focus on the more overtly cultural and critical-transformative-innovative dimensions of learning through participatory practice
Researchers need to seek productive balance between theory-driven and more ‘grounded’ approaches to researching digital literacies. As new practices emerge it will not always be appropriate to try and understand them in terms of extant theory – indeed, often it will not be appropriate to do so, and the trick is to know when to give new theory a chance to emerge from the data. In addition, we believe it is important for researchers of digital literacies to ‘get out as often as possible’ and investigate cultural fringes as matters of interest in their own right, and not with a view to seeking educational applications
Current developments on the internet reflected in talk about a transition from Web 1.0 to Web 2.0 mark changes in the constitution of social practices that call out to be researched carefully with an eye to understanding their implications for learning and expertise
In the context of his discussion of how the ways the law is currently evolving are working to limit cultural creativity, Lawrence Lessig (2004) cites John Seely Brown’s observation that we ‘need to understand how kids who grow up digital think and want to learn ..
Endnote
Digital literacies present significant challenges to policy, pedagogy, and research in relation to education. In our view, facing and meeting these challenges begins from ensuring that digital literacy does not become the post-typographic equivalent of functional literacy from the world of pr. This, in turn, presupposes resisting the reduction of digital literacy to an ‘It’ and, on the contrary, keeping our purview open and corrigible.
Source:
Lankshear, C. & Knoebel, M. (2006). Digital literacy and digital literacies: Policy, pedagogy and research considerations for education, Digital kompetanse, 1. Henta 27.08.2008 frå: idunn.no
The ‘It’ perspective on digital literacy
Some typical conceptual definitions of ‘digital literacy’
Some typical ‘standardised operationalisations’ of digital literacy
Key features of these conceptual definitions and operationalisations of digital literacy
(Sociocultural) critique of digital literacy from an ‘It’ perspective
Digital literacies in everyday life
Some policy, pedagogy and research considerations
Policy
Pedagogy
Research
Endnote
Source:
Lankshear, C. & Knoebel, M. (2006). Digital literacy and digital literacies: Policy, pedagogy and research considerations for education, Digital kompetanse, 1. Henta 27.08.2008 frå: idunn.no